Cinnamon Kiss

After dealing with the fallout from an external crisis--the LA riots--in the last books, Easy Rawlins must now face another more personal catastrophe: his adopted daughter Feather is extremely ill. The only way to save her may be to send her to an extremely expensive clinic abroad, and Easy is willing to do anything--up to and including murder--to get her the treatment she needs. Desperately searching for a case, he is faced with two alternatives: one, to accept a case from a pompous and mysterious "super-detective" and locate a missing man and the papers he ostensibly stole; two, to join his crooked friend Mouse on a bank heist. However, Easy quickly discovers that his first alternative may in fact lead him to even murkier waters than show more the second.

Mosley is one of the best noir writers out there, and the Easy Rawlins series exemplifies his skill; Rawlins' wry narration deftly captures the racial tensions of 60s LA. Yet every so often, I end up infuriated with Rawlins, and unfortunately, this is one of those books. My issue comes down to Easy's personality: he is astute in his analysis of the world and the circumstances he lives in, but in my opinion, he is almost entirely lacking in self-insight. He tends to rush to judgment, but he rarely evaluates whether his decisions or his opinions were justified. This makes him a rounded, real, character, but it's a trait I have issues with, and one reason I may prefer LT (first book:The Long Fall) to Easy. This book, with its focus on Easy's relationship with his girlfriend Bonnie, highlights this defect. hover for spoiler.

If you're hooked on the Rawlins series and don't mind the certain areas where he lacks introspection, I think this is an interesting addition to the series. For other readers, it may not be the best example of Mosley's talents, as it lacks the driving and coherent plot that characterizes other books in the series. It also lacks much of the little domestic moments that I tend to love about these books. However, if you're a fan of Mouse, he's a major player in this story, and Jackson Blue also makes an appearance. Mosley, as always, does a wonderful job in capturing the atmosphere of the city and its time period. One of my favorite moments in the books is Easy's bewildered interactions with hippies... that by itself made the book a worthwhile read. show less

I don't usually follow detective series, and this is the first Easy Rawlins novel I've read, although it is apparently the 10th in the series. Easy Rawlins is a black private detective in LA in the 1960's. This is a book to read for its evocation of time and place. It's 1966, and the Watts riots have barely died down. The plot brings Easy up to San Francisco, so there are also some great portrayals of the Haight-Ashbury of the time.
Maybe it's, sadly, really not all that different now. I was particularly struck by this scene in which Easy and a companion are approached by two cops at a phone booth (no cell phones then):

"I couldn't help but think about the Cold War going on inside the borders of the United States. The police were on one show more side and Raymond and his breed were on the other.
"I came out of the phone booth with my hands in clear sight.
"My job was to make these cops feel that Raymond and I had a legitimate reason to be there at that phone booth on that street corner. Most Americans wouldn't understand why two well-dressed men would have to explain why they were standing on a public street."

Recommended show less

Best Easy R. book yet. Fast moving with character insight, metaphor, and sense of place. That includes Easy's trips to SF. The ending was a surprise and it put it over the top. Maybe ER was too hard on Bonnie, Mouse a little too God-like and perfect in his bullet-proof imperfections. And of course a lot of bad whitey but still a book I had a hard time putting down.

With his daughter, Feather, at death's door suffering from a mysterious fever, Easy must accept a job from a man he despises, Robert E. Lee, arrogant, bigoted and "in certain circles, he's the most renowned private detective in the world." Easy is to work with Saul Lynx to find Philomena (Cinnamon) Cargill, servant of liberal lawyer, Axel Bowers, who Lee says has stolen a briefcase full of documents from his unnamed client and who is now out of the country. Although told to restrict his investigation to LA, Easy investigates Bowers house and finds a trunk full of Nazi memorabilia and the body of Axel Bowers.
Easy solves the case, and Feather recovers but Easy's heart can not resolve Bonnie's betrayal and he asks her to leave.

I has read the first 4 novels in the Rawlins series as they were published, before the hiatus. I missed the resumption of the series, and have tried to catch up twice. In this novel, we have reached the late '60's, the height of the Haight. Mosley manages the duality of Rawlins, his identity as a member of a subordinated group and his identity as a thinking and moral person as deftly as is possible. His voice is unique, provocatively, literary at turns. The story breaks down as a crime story or mystery, but makes up for itself as a novel of servitude, anger, violence, survival and transcendence.

Easy Rawlins struggles to come up with the money to send his adopted daughter Feather to Switzerland for treatment of a deadly blood disorder, without losing everything he has worked for including a respectable job, a beautiful woman he loves, his home and possibly his life. Tough, brilliant and heart-breaking. (Reviewed in 2018)

Easy Rawlins, as usual, is caught between a rock and a hard place. He's hired by an strange little but powerful detective to track down a girl and some documents. Nightmares, gunshots, evasion tactics, sex and scheming ensue. Rawlins is a great character and Walter Mosley populates his novels with colorful and unusual types. This book is no exception. However, this one didn't seem as powerful as earlier Rawlins books and at times I felt Mosley was dumbing the prose down for readers, which I don't like at all. But I'll never regret a few hours spent with Mosley.